Aqueous waste treatment is a costly multistage process involving aeration, filtration, precipitation, settling and other steps to provide effluent of sufficient quality to be released back into the environment. The sophisticated water treatment facilities associated with a modern sewage treatment plant or waste water treatment facility remain cost prohibitive and invariably geographically remote from large scale animal husbandry operations such as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Such large scale animal husbandry operations produce large volumes of manure that represent a serious environmental problem in terms of odor, methane sources, and fly breeding facilities and represent a source of ground water contamination. Additionally, concern is mounting that such manure lagoons also represent a serious source of hormones and antibiotics that contaminate the environment.
The purification of a liquid from a dissolved solute typically involves solvent stripping, chromatography or reverse osmosis membranes, yet the use of these techniques is limited by throughout and the cost of consumables.
While prior art attempts to dehydrate manure lagoons with the use of super absorbent polymer absorption and subsequent liquid release with a pH stimulus have proved successful in absorbing water and releasing the same subsequently have reduced problems associated with manure lagoons, problems still persist. U.S. Pat. No. 6,869,464 B2 is representative of the use of super absorbent polymers for moisture absorption associated with manure lagoons.
Thus, there exists a need for a system and process well suited for the separation of a liquid from a dissolved solute that is efficient to an extent such that a manure lagoon can be operated to manage health and environmental problems associated with such facilities.